Recreating Yoshinoya Mushroom Congee

Its called Yoshinoya Assorted Mushroom Congee with Ao Nori. You can see more of its pictures at the Hong Kong Yoshinoya Site.

I've been a sucker for this dish since I discovered it late last year. Its been available for its menu for some years now, but its only recently that I had the courage to try it (I was addicted to their beef bowl right before that). I had a craving today, and figured that I might as well try to recreate the dish myself, since I'm so fond of trying to recreate dishes that I've eaten at restaurants.

So in my attempt to accomplish this, I headed to several supermarket chains to gather my ingredients. Cost me quite a bit though, but nevermind that. I didn't really get something particularly expensive, its just that its a bit over my budget, and I don't really allot a big budget for myself to begin with.

So to try and recreate the dish, I put together this recipe:

Assorted Mushroom Congee with Ao Nori

100g Assorted asian mushrooms (Clamshell, oyster, shiitake, enoki)*
4 cups flavored stock, preferably bonito dashi
1 tablespoon Ao Nori Flakes
3 strips of 1x3 seasoned seaweed (those japanese seaweeds that people snack on)
dash of salt
Cooked rice, preferably short or medium grain
1 teaspoon of light colored soy sauce

Serves approximately for 2

Instructions
1. Bring the stock to a boil. If using dashi granules, boil water and add in the granules.
2. shred the seasoned seaweed into small pieces and add them into the boiling stock. Also add in the Ao Nori flakes
3. Add the soy sauce. Then add some salt. Taste. (Should be slightly salty so it would be good stock to add to rice)
4. Add the mushrooms and bring to a boil. Turn down heat and let it simmer for 5-10 minutes.
5. Add the stock to the cooked rice. Serve.

Pre-cooking notes:
*You want to select a wide range of asian mushrooms, and ideally cut (if the mushroom is initially big, like shiitake) or separated(if the mushrooms are in clumps, like enoki or clamshell) to bite size pieces


The whole thing turned out to be nice, but I suppose I added in a bit too little salt so the whole thing tasted a little bland. You should adjust the saltiness of the dish so that when added to the rice, it won't taste as bland. I suppose you can cheat by adding the salt AFTER you've placed everything in the bowl, but its still not nice :) All in all it was interesting.

NOTE: You can also take a look at foodsubs.com, it has an extensive list of mushroom varieties, together with accompanying pictures
NOTE: When I get the time , I'll take a picture of MY version. I seem to have conveniently finished it all up. :)